Breathe into Me
by Otaku Samurai
Summary: There were only two things that made Marceline feel that she had a heart. One was her bass. The other was Bonnibel.


**So my headcanon is this: Marcy was actually (unintentionally) writing ****_I'm Just Your Problem_**** right before the Door Lord crashed into her house.**

**This is kinda sad and sappy, like a broken cocktail. Also, I couldn't think of a better title, my bad. This was originally posted on my Tumblr... and I don't own AT.**

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_"La da da-da daaa..."_

She wrote songs because she hated getting trapped in her mind. It was, to be honest, the _suckiest_ place to be: it was a black, jagged abyss of endless time, smoke, and the scent of burnt rubber. Memories of bombs, fries, the loss of a friend... Ash's punk-ass pawning off Hambo, a broken relationship—she _hated_ thinking about it. It was so easy to tip off into the labyrinth between her pointed ears, and it was always such a damn hassle trying to get out. With a thousand years and counting (not that she was, since counting made it even _worse_) under her belt, writing was the only thing that kept her sane.

Insane.

Whatever.

Her bass was the catharsis. Her music was the release.

A metronome tapped with a one-two-three-four interval. Repeat. She bobbed her head, inhaled unnecessary air. She let it flow.

_"I'm gonna bury you in the ground..."_

She fiddled with a string. Picked at it, slid the calloused pad of her thumb and index finger over G and A. She smirked thoughtfully, and a sharp white fang pointed out over her bottom lip. This sounded good, _real good_. She lost herself. Her left hand danced at the frets, and Marceline the Vampire Queen floated higher in the air, back arched. Her hair was a flame of black mass —huh, maybe she should cut it again— and it fluttered about her slate-gray shoulders as she hovered about the room.

She closed her eyes and let the vibrations tremble.

There were only two things that made her feel like she still had a heart. One was her bass guitar. _Big surprise._ Not only did the axe make her ripping up the stage look totally hardcore, and not only did it keep her preoccupied from getting stuck in those glob-awful memories, but every thrum, every lightning shock tremor of slapped baritone made her believe that she still had blood flowing through her black veins. The axe gave her a pulse. A vague sense of meaning.

It gave her life.

"_La da da-da daaaa..." _

The flat cherry body of the bass was flush against the sleek plane of her stomach. She made sweet metaphorical love to that guitar. She threw her whole body into her art. The tremors grew through her core, up and down her floating beanpole body and ricocheted off her frigid organs. Nimble fingers teased the rough strings, and her toes curled. Satisfaction, release. One flick of her pinkie caused E to roll through her skeleton. D danced around in her skull with a simple pluck of her middle. Marceline was _so_ lost in the sound and it felt _so_ good. Like a breath of fresh spring air. The reddest apple on the tree. A summertime memory.

_Like a kiss in the shade, man._

She wrote songs because she didn't want to think. Through the music, those thoughts could materialize, vocalize, harmonize. Her spectrum of life wasn't logic: she flirted with the side of emotions. Feeling. Singing out, recording it and then storing it away—it let her forget.

_"I'm gonna bury you in my sound..."_

But some songs wouldn't stay in the abyss. Some songs where too deep, too cold, too angry. They liked to climb out when Marceline wasn't really listening, when she was too loose. Too raw.

Raw, like her limbs—like that empty cavity in her chest when the last beat of her heart escaped a thousand years past.

There were only two things that made her feel that she still had a heart. One was her bass guitar, her dark red axe. But there was one other thing. Well, no, not a thing.

"_I'm gonna drink the red..._"

Definitely not a _thing_.

"_From your pretty..._"

Brainiac, yeah—ultra-geek chemist test-tube freak, totally. Comparable to her bass, yet incomparable to the flesh, the form, the touch of skin.

"..._ pink face."_

Bonnibel.

Above the curl of her lip, a coarse dimple from a savage, habitual grin rooted out of nostalgia. Her name was quite literally the sweetest thing to ever grace her lips, and—oh wait, _scratch that_. Her name was only _one_ of the sweetest things, locked in a list of unmentionables, to grace those gray thin lips.

Marceline's tongue clicked against her right fang. She stopped the chord, kept her float stationary. The clockwork gears behind her red eyes creaked down their pace, the pen stopped scratching doodles in her head. Riding out the last few waves, the vibrations of the bass ceased. Her chest was filled with a new ache, a new hollow throb.

Behind her, the metronome continued it's rinse and repeat, _thump-thump_.

The guitar may have given her reason to think she had a heart, but... as stupid as it sounded in Marceline's head, Bonnibel was the only person to make the vampire believe that her heart had a _beat_.

Drifting towards the ground, she cradled the bass in her long arms. With one inhale and a slow exhale, she chuckled softly—sadly. Long ago, Bonni would have held herself close, too. Once, she would have shivered as fingers teased at the sugary vein under her arm as if it were a C string. Twice, would she have slapped at that gray hand and then cover it with her own. More than a few times had their fingers intertwined.

Marceline blinked.

Those days were long past. Now, all Marceline could do was supplement the heartbeat Bonnibel forged with the intricate chords of her guitar. The axe brought the blood pumping, but only when she let herself trip did it lose its luster. The vibrations that electrocuted the vampire during every jam session had absolutely _nothing_ on the way the candy princess—

A sharp crack burst Marceline out of her reverie. She twisted towards the noise. One of her eyebrows tweaked in confusion, but she gripped her axe anyway.

"A... Door Lord?"

"HMHMMMHHMMHHMMM!"

"Oh _greaaat_."

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**I think I started off strong but then kinda died at the end. That's how it was supposed to flow, but whatever. I did my best to get exactly 1000 words. Please review, would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading :D**


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